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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28232301">The Crying Light</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/themoonfish/pseuds/themoonfish'>themoonfish</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Blinks of Light [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Trek: Discovery</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:29:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,005</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28232301</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/themoonfish/pseuds/themoonfish</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“I was born to adore you<br/>as a baby in the blind,<br/>I was born to represent you<br/>to carry your head into the sun<br/>to carve you face into the back of the sun”</i>
</p><p>or</p><p>that one a/u where Philippa returns from Terra Firma and the Door to Forever <i>fully alive</i> and <s>tumultuously</s> integrated.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Michael Burnham/Mirror Philippa Georgiou, Michael Burnham/Philippa Georgiou</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Blinks of Light [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2090766</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>61</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Crying Light</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Just finished 3x10 and thought, what if instead of losing both Philippa’s to acts of war, spin-offs, and temporal mechanics, Michael gets them both back?</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I was born to adore you<br/>
As a baby in the blind, ooh<br/>
I was born to represent you<br/>
To carry your head into the sun<br/>
To carve you face into the back of the sun”</p><p><em>The Crying Light</em>, Antony &amp; the Johnsons</p><p>“Blinks of Light<br/>
Flash before my eyes<br/>
Just like all the times before<br/>
But I can see a little more”</p><p><em>Blinks of Light</em>, Keenan O’Meara<br/>
</p>
<hr/><p><br/>
“You’re usually not so quiet.” She is, of course, the first one to break. All those Years of carefully practiced Vulcan stoicism are no match for the formidable silence of Philippa Georgiou.</p><p>“Well...to be fair, neither are you.” The older woman says drily, though not unkindly. </p><p>Michael grins half heartedly, “I know. But I thought I might try being the silent supportive type.” The other woman scoffs.</p><p>“No need to start now. You were never any good at it. Not in this world <em> or any other</em>.” The carefully engineered smirk on Philippa’s face would almost be wistful if it weren’t for the pained look in her eyes. </p><p>“So I’ve been told.” Michael says with some irony, thinking of the first time she’d had a similar conversation with the impeccable Starfleet captain in a ready room on a completely different ship, a far cry from the impersonal guest quarters they find themselves in now. </p><p>She supposes she deserves the withering glare she receives from Philippa, face bathed in half shadows and the rippling light of a distant quasar. The relief of such blinding light and its curious absence sends Michael plunging into the depths of another memory. This time, she finds herself involuntarily on the fourth deck of the <em>Discovery</em> where the Sun Emperor of the Terran Empire had threatened to split the lip of a certain Starfleet commander if she didn’t stop <em> staring at her like a salivating Frengi salesman at a deep space exchange. </em>Of course, when Michael had finally found her senses and quickly averted her eyes before scrounging up the courage to speak to her former Captain’s ghost, the woman had struck with the accuracy of a viper, splitting Michael’s lip with the edge of a briolette cut ring anyway. </p><p>Her lip still twitches involuntarily whenever Philippa is around. </p><p><em> How is it</em>, Michael thinks, <em> that both so little and so much time has passed? </em> </p><p>She wonders and wonders until she can hardly help the laugh that is fighting to bubble out of her chest.</p><p>What was once mind numbingly complex is now so shockingly simple. </p><p>Captain Georgiou, Her Most Imperial Majesty, Philippa. </p><p>They’re all the same woman. <em> They’ve always been. </em>And not because of a trick of light or some temporal mechanic glitch that sent alternate universes on an imminent (and immanent) collision course until both women were housed in the same achingly beautiful tower of flesh. They’ve only ever been the same woman. It’s Michael who’s since changed enough to finally notice.</p><p>It’s so funny isn’t it, how Michael has lived so many lives, on Earth, Doctari Alpha, and Vulcan; on the <em>Shenzhou</em>, in the brig, and then the <em>Discovery</em>? She’s even lived in the time before and the millennia after, and yet, what a coward and what a fool she’s been this whole time, convinced she was brave all along. </p><p>The laugh bubbles and bubbles. Licks at her ribs and tickles her raw throat. She doubles over, finding the searing clarity delightfully punishing as the careful world she’s built around her threatens to topple like a house of cards.</p><p>“I’m glad you find this so entertaining.” Philippa grouses out the viewport in the voice of an emperor without an empire and with all the clipped professional gestures of a fleet captain without a ship. </p><p>“I’m sorry,” Michael says suspended between weeping and wheezing. “I just need a moment.” </p><p>Phillipa whips around in a way that is all her, through and through, no matter the space nor the time.</p><p>“A moment?” she sniffs derisively “Of course. By all means, please, continue to openly mock me.” That the woman punctuates the end of her tantrum compulsory pout, something neither Captain or Emperor—yet still entirely Georgiou—is what finally sends Michael spinning into the great big blue. </p><p>“No.” She says, “No. Not to mock you. I could never mock you.” Trembling, Michael reaches forward with an unsteady hand until that hand has stilled against the cheek of her captain, her captor, her friend.  </p><p>“Then what—” Philippa begins, but her unfinished and panicked question dies in both their throats when Michael swoops in to swallow it with a kiss. </p><p>The kiss is both unexpected and inevitable. It’s as sweet as it is loaded, heavy with all that’s unspoken between them, punctuated by the clashing of teeth and the softening of tongue. No one is laughing now.</p><p>When they part for air, breathing heavily with their foreheads pressed tightly against the other, Michael smiles with tears in her eyes and both her hands framing the small unsure face before her.  </p><p>“I see you Philippa.” Michael croaks, her voice still rusty from Hugh’s whispered apology, Saru’s plaintive look, Tilly’s loose grip on her shoulder. </p><p>She had almost lost them. <em> Lost her.  </em></p><p>What would she have done if her firefly had walked through that door and flickered out of existence, extinguished as though she were merely a candle instead of each and every sun this side of the Milky Way?</p><p>Michael is crying in earnest now, but she never stops repeating her litany, her prayer:</p><p>
  <em> I see you. I see you. I do.</em>
</p><p>Michael sways and Philippa sways with her, until they are swaying a delicate dance across the room and into the sleeping alcove where they make quick work of the remaining layers between them. </p><p>If Philippa stops them before they fall to the bed, stops them before giving over to the yawning history between them and the unmistakable future before them, it is only to mirror Michael’s gesture with her hands pressed against the younger woman’s full cheeks as if to say,</p><p>
  <em> I see you too. </em>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>drop me a like and let me know what you think.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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